Haiti, the western hemisphere’s poorest country, bore the brunt of damage in the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. The impact of one tropical storm and three hurricanes was significant enough to reverse the development gains made in Haiti in 2007, including improvements in security and GDP. More than 800,000 people—or 10 percent of the population—were directly affected by the storms.
Project Objectives
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is sponsoring the recovery of livelihoods and the mitigation of future disasters in two sites in Haiti through the rehabilitation of vulnerable watersheds using high intensity of labor and food-for-work approaches. The Bretagne and Gattereau sites employ a combined total of 5,000 people; all 32 sites in the Gonaives area employed 26,000 people in 2008. This is a national programme that works in three other regions beyond Gonaives, and is creating 5,000 more jobs this summer alone. It focuses on rehabilitation of watersheds and improvement of urban environments by building retaining walls, ditches, and terraces. It is a joint project of UNDP, the International Labour Organization, and the World Food Programme (WFP), and is financed by UNDP, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Central Emergency Response Fund, the Department for International Development (UK), and the government of Norway. |
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